Various mixtures of organic compounds have been proposed in the art as fertilizer additives. Specifically, a humic acid composition, BIO-LIQUID COMPLEX™, is stated by Bio Ag Technologies International (1999) to assist in transferring micronutrients, more specifically cationic nutrients, from soil to plant.
TRIFLEX™ Bloom Formula nutrient composition of American Agritech is described as containing “phosphoric acid, potassium phosphate, magnesium sulfate, potassium sulfate, potassium silicate sodium silicate.” TRIFLEX™ Grow Formula 2-4-1 nutrient composition of American Agritech is described as containing “potassium nitrate, magnesium nitrate, ammonium nitrate, potassium phosphate, potassium sulfate, magnesium sulfate, potassium silicate, and sodium silicate.” Both compositions are said to be “fortified with selected vitamins, botanical tissue culture ingredients, essential amino acids, seaweed, humic acid, fulvic acid and carbohydrates.” These products are said to be formulated primarily for “soilless hydrogardening” (i.e., hydroponic cultivation) of fruit and flower crops, but are also said to outperform conventional chemical fertilizers in container soil gardens. Their suitability or otherwise for foliar application as opposed to application to the hydroponic or soil growing medium is not mentioned.
The trademark MONARCH™, owned by Actagro, LLC is a fertilizer composition containing 2-20-15 primary plant nutrients with 3% non plant food organic compositions derived from natural organic materials.
Plants in general are susceptible to a variety of environmental stresses, including for example, drought, salinity, low light, water logging, disease, pests, and temperature. Conventional nutritional plant treatments are generally unable or incapable of providing plants with resistance to environmental stresses and are therefore are limited to providing benefit to otherwise healthy or flourishing plants. However, commercial agronomical processes require additional plant treatments to reduce plant stress or enhance the plants ability to resist common environmental stresses and/or to recover from such stresses quickly. Typical examples of common environmental stresses include continuous periods without water (drought), exposure to salt water, flooding, prolonged darkness, and temperature variations/frost. Exposure to such stresses generally can result in poor or no yields, but also can display reduced root growth, and/or reduced leaf growth or count, and/or reduced stalk weight and/strength, and/or reduced fruit size and/or weight and/or nutritional value. While a plant may possess some natural defenses to such stresses, there is a need to provide to plants enhanced abilities to respond and/or recover to such stresses to allow for maximizing agronomical production.